Author Archives: The Voice

Good news from Wales – Kirsty Williams’ Bill which would stipulate minimum staffing levels for nurses has cleared its first parliamentary stage.

Nursing Times has the story:

If passed into law, the Safe Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Bill would see Wales become the first country in the UK with a legal duty on safe nurse staffing levels in acute settings.

Kirsty Williams, leader of the Welsh Democrats, who originally submitted the proposals for safe nurse staffing levels in hospitals, said she was “pleased” the idea had gained support from all parties.

The vote today in the Welsh Assembly represents the end of stage one of the bill. It will now progress to stage two where it will be considered for a second time by the assembley’s health and social care committee and face a first round of amendments.

Under the assembly’s normal process, the bill would then have to survive two further stages before it can become legislation.

Kirsty is quoted as saying:

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 417th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere … Featuring the seven most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (24 – 30 May, 2015), together with a hand-picked quintet, you might otherwise have missed.

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As ever, let’s start with the most popular post, and work our way down:

Jim Wallace, Liberal Democrat Leader in the Lords, responded to the Queen’s Speech with a gentle and highly noble jibe at Danny Finkelstein and was pretty robust in saying that if the Tories, elected on barely a third of the vote, tried to push through reactionary legislation, the Lords had every right to scrutinise it robustly.  Here is his speech in full: